Seattle Biotech Dendreon To Lay Off 500 Employees
Dendreon, one of Seattle’s hottest and most visible biotechnology companies, yesterday announced that it will lay off 500 employees or 25 percent of its workforce. The company’s only product Provenge—a prostate cancer vaccine that received FDA approval over a year ago—has been slow to be adopted and is lagging in sales. As of August 31 Dendreon had only 600 million in cash and investments.
Dendreon staffed up to about 2,000 employees in anticipation of brisk sales of Provenge. Approximately, 100 jobs will be cut in Seattle and an additional 400 will be slashed at the company’s manufacturing facilities in New Jersey, Atlanta and Los Angeles. Because Provenge is a personalized prostate cancer vaccine, the company needed to create manufacturing facilities in close proximity to hospitals where patients are treated.
According to an article in the Daily Advantage “Dendreon reported in early August that quarterly gross revenues were only $51 million, about $7 million short of analysts' expectations, and it withdrew earlier projections that sales for the year would soar to $350 million or $400 million.”
Some BioJobBlog readers may recall that FDA approval of Provenge was not without some drama. There were allegations that there were conflicts of interest among several members of the advisory committee that FDA assembled to review the product (several members of the committee failed to disclose that they were consultants to companies that were competing with Dendreon for prostate cancer treatments).
One of the main reasons for the slow sales of Provenge was the delay in reimbursements for physicians who used the product. It sometimes took Medicare, the largest provider of medical insurance in the US, three to five months to reimburse them.
Provenge costs about $93,000 for a three-stage course of treatment. According to the FDA, Provenge can increase the median survival time of patients with asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic metastatic castrate resistant (hormone refractory) prostate cancer.
Until next time..
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!
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day, my good friend Pete learned that he had prostate cancer. His prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels were slightly elevated over the past few years (they were in a gray zone that made a definitive diagnosis difficult without doing a biopsy). After being urged by his wife and urologist, he had the biopsy performed and, unfortunately, a diagnosis of prostate cancer was made. Hopefully, his cancer is localized to the prostate and will be easily treated via conventional therapies. As many of you may know, prostate cancer is easily treat and the cure rates high if it is detected early.